Senior writer Doug Smith scouts Los Angeles for the ragged edges where public policy meets real people, combining data analysis and gumshoe reporting to tell L.A. stories through his more than 50 years of experience covering the city. As past database editor from 2004 through 2015, he hunted down and analyzed data for news and investigative projects. Besides “Grading the Teachers,” he contributed to investigations of construction abuse in the community college system and the rising toll of prescription drug overdoses. Smith has been at The Times since 1970, covering local and state government, criminal justice, politics and education. He was the lead writer for Times’ coverage of the infamous North Hollywood shootout, winner of a 1997 Pulitzer Prize. Between 2005 and 2008, Smith made five trips to Iraq on loan to our foreign desk.
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Just over a month after several migrant families living with their children on the streets of Skid Row were moved into a motel, a more extensive encampment has formed with at least seven new families living in an array of large tents, pup tents and tarp shelters.
April 26, 2024
Former Times investigative reporter Kim Christensen, who died Monday, was known for his incisive reporting and equally keen wit.
April 17, 2024
A federal judge has found that Los Angeles city officials altered evidence in a case alleging that the city illegally seized and destroyed homeless people’s property.
April 16, 2024
The executor of O.J. Simpson’s estate has vowed to fight any attempt to collect the more than $30-million wrongful death judgment won by the families of Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
April 13, 2024
Temperatures were expected to remain below normal through Monday. The Malibu Canyon Road tunnel is closed in both directions.
April 14, 2024
The City Council agreed to pay up to $2.2 million for an outside audit — but that may not be enough for a federal judge.
April 6, 2024
Civic groups are gathering signatures to place a measure on the ballot that would double L.A. County’s homelessness sales tax to one-half cent.
March 27, 2024
A judge calls for “complete and thorough transparency for each and every homelessness assistance program and initiative” funded or run by the city of Los Angeles.
March 22, 2024
Al llegar de Texas, las cuatro familias migrantes de Centro y Sudamérica, con niños de tan solo 2 años, pasaron 90 días en Union Rescue Mission en Skid Row. Luego, cuando les dijeron que tendrían que pagar un alquiler que no tenían, formaron una comunidad improvisada en un campamento de tiendas de campaña a dos cuadras de distancia.
March 21, 2024
Arriving from Texas, the four migrant families from Central and South America, with children as young as 2, spent 90 days in the Union Rescue Mission in Skid Row. Then, told they’d have to pay rent they didn’t have, they formed an impromptu community in a tent encampment two blocks away.
March 21, 2024